America's Great War: World War I and the American Experience

by Robert Zieger, Robert H. Zieger

Overview

Recent bestsellers by Niall Ferguson and John Keegan have created tremendous popular interest in World War I. In America's Great War prominent historian Robert H. Zieger examines the causes, prosecution, and legacy of this bloody conflict from a frequently overlooked perspective, that of American involvement. This is the first book to illuminate both America's dramatic influence on the war and the war's considerable impact upon our nation. Zieger's engaging narrative provides vivid descriptions of the famous battles and diplomatic maneuvering, while also chronicling America's rise to prominence within the postwar world. On the domestic front, Zieger details how the war forever altered American politics and society by creating the National Security State, generating powerful new instruments of social control, bringing about innovative labor and social welfare programs, and redefining civil liberties and race relations. America's Great War promises to become the definitive history of America and World War I.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780742599253
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	11/13/2001
Series:	Critical Issues in American History
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	1,002,572
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Robert H. Zieger is professor of history at the University of Florida.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Chronology
Chapter 2 Introduction
Chapter 3 A World at War, 1914-15
Chapter 4 War, Peace, War
Chapter 5 Mobilizing for War
Chapter 6 Over There
Chapter 7 Class, Race, Gender
Chapter 8 Making the Peace
Chapter 9 Postwar America
Chapter 10 Questions for Americans

Editorial Reviews

This is a thoughtful, accessible and well-crafted analysis of the Great War's meaning and its impact on American society. Based on a scrupulous sifting of recent scholarship, Zieger's synthetic study brings to life both the geo-political significance of the war and its influence in reshaping the day-to-day lives of ordinary Americans.

Shelton Stromquist

Robert Zieger, the distinguished historian of labor, has produced in America's Great War a superb overview of the national experience in World War I. He adds to diplomatic, political, and military history a close examination of the war's impact on women, minorities, and workers. He provides a lucid and fair-minded examination of how America helped the Allies win the war and lose the peace, and incisively analyzes Woodrow Wilson, the conflicted, obsessive self-defeating president around whom the entire war turned. Taking advantage of the latest scholarship, while weaving it skillfully into his own powerful narrative, Zieger has made this the best introduction yet to America's role in the defining event of the 20th Century.

William L. O'Neill

Prize-winning historian Robert H. Zieger has written another exemplary book—this one a judicious and insightful examination of the American experience during the Great War. In this eminently readable, thoughtful, and well-reseached work, he has produced a masterful synthesis that instructs, challenges, fascinates. A model of scholarly analysis, Zieger's study will engage the interest of specialists, students, and general readers alike.

LeRoy Ashby

This is a concise, balanced, well written account of domestic, military and diplomatic aspects of the war which has greatly influenced American life in the ensuing eight decades. Zieger's book should be of interest to university students as well as general readers.

Rocky Ford Daily Gazette

Robert Zieger's fascinating reexamination of America's World War I experience is deeply informed, gracefully and accessibly written, exceptionally insightful, and extraordinarily well balanced. It provides a masterful and much needed synthesis incorporating the best of recent research and interpretive rethinking. And, as intended, it will leave readers not only with a better understanding of what happened and why but also with a heightened sense of its historical importance, tragic implications, and enduring interest. It deserves a wide readership and extensive usage.

Ellis W. Hawley

A thought-provoking work on the American experience during The Great War. This is an important work that adds to our understanding of the consequences of the First World War for the American people.

Relevance

The writing is lively, specific, and clear, but what impresses me most about this volume is its fairness. Zieger demonstrates that the strongest arguments from apparently clashing interpretations can be brought together to make a balanced, persuasive synthesis.

Kendrick Clements

Skillfully blending sources—new and old, primary and secondary, print and electronic—as well as innovative methodologies and insights from an impressive variety of historical sub-disciplines, Zieger transforms what seem, at first glance, familiar stories into fascinating and challenging reinterpretations.

Labor History - John D. Buenker

Overall, he more than meets his goal of providing a comprehensive and thought-provoking account of America's Great War experience for students and general readers.

The Register

This is an insightful examination of the American experience during World War I.

Journal of America's Military Past

Brimming with sharp judgments and keen insights, Zieger's is the best book yet on the American experience in World War I. Zieger skillfully places the war in historical perspective, showing how the events of 1917-18 shaped the century to come. But he also conveys a sense of how the unfolding drama of war, with all its uncertainties, appeared to Americans at the time.

Patrick J. Maney

Zieger's discussion of the war's effects on the labor, civil rights, and feminist movements is superb. For those interested in the importance of the Great War in American History, this is a fine book.

Military History

World War I was the seminal cataclysm of the twentieth century. Professor Zieger's lucid volume is a discerning and provocative exploration of its consequences for the American people.

George H. Nash

Zieger's deft historical synthesis of American society during WW I makes this volume informative for scholars and teachers, interesting for general readers, and especially useful for students. A superb synthesis, for all levels.

Choice Reviews

Anyone looking for a first-rate book on the United States and World War I will derive great pleasure and insight from Robert Zieger's America's Great War. This is a concise, balanced, thoughtful, and well-written account of domestic, military, and diplomatic aspects of a war that has greatly influenced American life and institutions in the ensuing 80 years.

James T. Patterson

This well-crafted book takes the measure of America's experience in World War I both at home and on the European battlefield, gauging the lofty hopes with which so many Americans entered the fray and plumbing the tragic legacy of the war with equal care. The work of a historian who combines uncommon skill with a deeply humane vision, America's Great War provides readers the best single-volume introduction to its subject now in print.

Joseph A. McCartin

Three qualities have always characterized Robert Zieger's work: thorough familiarity with the pertinent literature; balanced and thoughtful analysis; and a graceful writing style. Each of these are evident in this volume.

Burton Kaufman